Anita
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Posts posted by Anita
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3 hours ago, Aubrey said:
I believe you can work with fish and wildlife to do research, but it requires permits. I don't think they will allow breeding for aquaria though, if they don't already. This passage is about preserving specimens, but I'm sure they are also the people that you would contact and work with for other research projects.
I know there are certain species in my state that are allowed as wildlife pets, but there are rules for that. I also know that you need permits to breed native wildlife and to sell it.
All the laws make sense. Not just anyone and everyone should be able to tamper with local ecosystems without any consequence. Also permit and license fees help fund conservation. At least in my state keeping is pretty much ok, but the buying and selling gets tricky.
Like with getting any new fish, do your research. With natives it involves more than tank size and parameters and more of going through legal codes and possibly applying for permits.
ORD 💜
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3 hours ago, Daniel said:
Honest officer! I was just collecting..er....seining these pygmy sunfish for bait.
ORD 😆
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4 hours ago, Daniel said:
As we think about the upcoming anniversary one of the main posters who carried the forum for the first couple of months was the always helpful and always kind @Bill Smith, (member number 105). He published several ongoing journal/articles including the famous Pex Pillar, The Solar Powered USB Nano Pump, and many more (including Project Subaru above).
Plus he also managed to put those fancy Aquarium Co-Op guys in their places by winning the first few days on the forum.
I just found this thread. OMG, I loved these planter tubs! I will need to consider lights this summer. Thanks @Bill Smith for sharing such awesome photos! 🥰
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51 minutes ago, Daniel said:
Here is my 'Don't Tell the Wife' story from Thanksgiving of this year:
Younger aquarist think once you have money, and drivers license and you don't have to share a room with your brother all your problems are solved.
They are not. They just get more complicated.
I kept telling myself dollar a gallon...who cares...I need to take care of the tanks I have, not buy more. I kept telling myself, the spouse is calm about my ever metastasizing hobby, just be cool, be patient, and definitely no more aquariums.
Hat tip to @MickS77 for the meme
What if the dollar a gallon sale never ever happens again? Maybe, just maybe I could confuse her by being honest!
She didn't approve, but she didn't say no.
So I got two 75 gallons (not one like I mentioned and maybe not 1/3 of normal price). Now I felt embarrassed so I stashed them in the woodworking shop.
Problem is these days she is out in the shop all the time working on beehives. So...
Problem solved, right? Now I just I have to figure out how to tell her....
ORD 😆
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4 hours ago, Sal said:
My daughter has accepted her scholarship offering and will be attending the University of Vermont in the fall to study Biochemistry!! It has been a long process of applying and waiting, and we are just so excited to finally be at this point.
Anyone here attend UVM? I've been to Burlington many times, it's such a great little city! Excited to have an excuse to keep visiting!
I'm a proud Mama Bear! Thanks for letting me share the news! 🎉
Baa-aa-aa! Baa-aa-aa! (translation, "Congratulations!")
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3 hours ago, Daniel said:
Also called Amphipods, many are of the genus Grammarus. The name scud comes from its method of swimming and is Norwegian in origin.
In the U.S., the two most common types of freshwater amphipods, aka scuds, are Gammarus sp and Hyalella sp. Gammarus are larger and have longer antenna than Hyalella, https://www.ndfreshwaterinverts.vcsu.edu/php/mainkey.php?id=Amphipoda1a.
Like shrimp, scuds feed on detritus and other decaying matter. Many fish, including pea puffers, will eat them.
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29 minutes ago, LeonardoBetta said:
Hi Anita/all,
Leonardo (my betta) is still hanging in there. I will try this feeding technique tomorrow.
Also, I was thinking about doing the salt treatment described by JamesB first - in a day or so. Can I do water changes during the salt treatment as long as I am conscientious about keeping track of the salt amounts? Then if that treatment doesn’t work, I will start the 2nd round of Kanaplex/Furan-2.
Does that sound like an okay plan?
Thank you-
Leonardo’s mom 🙂
Good to hear that Leonardo is still with us! 🐟 I will defer any treatment advice to @Colu and @JamesB, since you have already been following their suggestions. 😎
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3 hours ago, Krakens_tanks said:
In the words of my favorite pixar movie "you got a friend in me"...
To infinity, and beyond! 🤩
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3 hours ago, Celly Rasbora said:
Can you imagine having to be told coal gas is poison to fish? 🤪
Or your kids? 🙄
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6 hours ago, RickHunter said:
Something huge for me that I found out about a week ago.
So we've all tried freeze dried foods and they take forever to sink etc. Now, you can sink them by pressing them against the glass etc but that doesnt always work and with cube stuff once someone takes a few bite it knocks loose and goes right to the surface. So here's the super cool trick I heard about, solves it with science 😄
Picked up some large syringes meant for horses from tractor supply (without needles)
1. Pull out the plunger in the syringe and put some freeze dried food in.
2. Replace the plunger and pull a little bit of tank water into the syringe
3. Push plunger until water is reaching the tip but not coming out
4. Cover the opening and pull back on the plunger
This creates a pressure difference that squeezes the air out of the freeze dried food and causes them to be instantly saturated by the water inside without squishing the food into a clump etc
5. Once the food inside the syringe is sinking in the water inside you can remove the plunger a dump it into the tank where it will sink. Or if the syringe opening it big enough you can squeeze the food out of the syringe into the tank.Excellent solution! 💯
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17 hours ago, lefty o said:
beep happens.
😂 😂 😂 One reaction wasn't enough!
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21 hours ago, Kirsten said:
So wild.
LOL saw that about Muddy Water. I know he's a great blues singer, but can he really fix a leaking aquarium?
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5 hours ago, Will Billy said:
Personally i love pest snails. Since having them i have stopped using my magnetic algae scraper, and have even gone as far as to grow beneficial algae in a clear plastic cup in my window sill to keep them fed and happy. An army of bladder snails is the best cleaning crew i have ever experienced.
Now that is a dedicated aquarist, culturing algae on purpose! 😁
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16 hours ago, LeonardoBetta said:
Thank you Anita- I will look into your tweezer feeding approach and see what happens.
One thing that was different before he got sick was I was not able to do an entire tank cleaning since January. I would do that once a month. I used to be able to trick him and get him into a plastic quart container. He would just swim into it in the past. Then he got wise to that approach. I was afraid to scoop him with a net cause i was afraid to tear his fins. However, despite me not being able to do a deep tank cleaning- I did gravel vacuuming one or twice a week. Maybe that caused the problem and why it is persisting? I did another water change gravel vac today again of 2&1/2 gallons. I added 8 drops of Prime. This evening I gave him 3/4 cap of Stressgard.
I did not put salt in or round 2 antibiotics-yet. I was following Colu’s instructions to give him a little break.
Thanks for your help.
Oops, my bad. I meant, your substrate is not the type that breaks down, isn't very deep, and doesn't look dirty. It was the end of a very long day when I typed all that! Sorry! 😵Again, a substrate problem would typically show up in your water parameters as excess nitrates, nitrites, and/or ammonia. But your water parameters look good. Even so, let's see if the gravel vacuuming helps! It seems you are doing everything you can right now. Time to let your poor little guy rest. 💗
Instead of the tweezers, you might try using a small ceramic or glass dish to feed your betta. Lots of people on the forum use these because they help keep the food from disappearing into the substrate.
The food needs to sink, so floating food needs to be soaked and frozen food needs to be thawed. I would suggest trying some thawed out frozen brine shrimp. Bloodworms may be too rich right now, in your Betta's weakened state. Suck up the soggy food into a small pipette, lower the pipette into the dish, and gently squeeze the pipette bulb to deposit the food onto the dish. Don't squeeze too hard or you could "jet" the food out of the dish. I use a ceramic dish with a lip, which helps keep the food from getting pushed out. You just leave the dish in the tank.
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On 4/5/2021 at 6:48 PM, MattyIce said:
With 15+ tanks, when taking a bunch of samples, I tend to loose track of which one came from which tank, so I came up with an idea today. Using some multi wall lexan I had left over from making lids, white plastic cover still on it so the colors stand out better, I used a sharpie to write out my tanks, and hung it up. The freshly dipped strips stick nicely:
The only negative I’ve found so far is if they are too wet they can drip onto other strips and change their readings.a lot of room for improvement, like using a more opaque white so the strip colors stand out even better, but really happy with how well it works.
ORD 💜 This is brilliant! 😃 How about laying the lexan flat and horizontal until the strips absorb some water? Then tip the lexan vertical for easier viewing.
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29 minutes ago, Krakens_tanks said:
Lol this is going to make me seem like a terrible person but story time hahaha
So like 2 years ago I found one of my old math teachers on Facebook as one if the people you may know my first message to him was "dude you lied to me, you said I wouldn't always have a calculator yet here I am typing this massage on one" thankfully he took the joke well
ORD 🤣 He was probably surprised you remembered him at all!
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37 minutes ago, LeonardoBetta said:
Hi Anita,
I have several silk plants, lily pad, a couple betta leafs, and ceramic betta log all bought from petco. I started with 1 plant and ceramic log- and added more over time. I think I hadn’t added much anything new since last fall. I thought he was getting bored so I kept adding.
Here is a picture of the tank. I have been keeping his light off most of the day at this point. He is sleeping on his side by his log. Kind of hard to see him.
There is an air stone in there in the back too. I have it on now. Would filter related accessories cause issues if they are too old? I kept some sponges and a bag with white bio balls or something like that inside the fluval spec filter sponge -thinking it has good bacteria. Maybe they need changed out? I put a carbon one in for now after the first round of kanaplex/furan2 was completed.
Thank you for your interest.
Just trying to come up with some ideas about what might be happening. Seems like your tank is stable and you haven't added any weird decorations or plants. If they came from a craft store, they might have chemicals that would make your betta sick. But from Petco, I would expect them to be fish safe. And they are not new.
When a fish that has been healthy for a long time gets sick, most of the time it is because of the water quality has deteriorated or you introduced a disease or chemicals. But as mentioned by others, your water parameters seem good and you haven't introduced any new "stuff" into the tank. I agree with @Colu, I would not expect filter media, sponges, or decorations to be a problem just because they are old. Where people run into problems with "old" is when they have very old substrate, which depending on the type can break down or trap excessive amounts of waste. You don't have substrate, so that's out.
You have been getting good advice about bacteria, filters, and medication, so there's no need for me to add anything. FWIW, at this point, I wonder if @JamesB is right, and your betta is just getting old? As he mentioned, you do not know how old the betta was when you purchased it. Likewise, you know nothing about the quality of care it received before coming home with you. For example, I have owned dogs, cats, and birds, always as strays or from rescue shelters. Some of them have not lived as long as normal because they had such hard lives before I adopted them.
Oh, one thing. Be really patient with the hand-feeding. It is not normal for a fish to recognize that your hand or tweezers are bringing food, as opposed to trying to catch and eat it. Follow @Colu advice and try not to "chase" the fish with the food. One thing you might try is to grab some food with the tweezers and wrap a rubber band around them to hold the food in the tips. Then slowly and gently try to maneuver the food end as close to the betta as possible without spooking it. Lay the tweezers down on the bottom of the tank and walk away from the tank for a couple hours. No peeking, which might spook the betta. Fish have a pretty good sense of smell. If you can get the tips of the tweezers anywhere close, it should be able to smell it. By leaving the tweezers in the tank, this lets your betta inspect it and get used to it in the tank. I cannot promise this will work, I am brainstorming a bit based on what I know about animals in general. (I have cared for all sorts of critters, for many years.)
Sorry I don't have any great answers for you. Hang in there and try not to stress out. You are doing plenty of good things for your betta. And sometimes, less is better. Or in other words, you have to resist the temptation to do more, and just ride things out. 💗
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Just now, Krakens_tanks said:
😲😲😲 I never thought of it that way... Explains why I failed math alot lmao but definitely makes sense.
Ah you give me too much credit. 🤭This explanation has been discussed elsewhere. I just summarized and added an example. Who does math in their head anymore? Not me! Hahaha!😵
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@Krakens_tanks I believe something like that. Or more specifically, to give each reaction more weight and in that way make the reaction totals more meaningful. Having a limit motivates people to be more thoughtful about using their reactions.
For example, what does it mean that someone received 3,145 likes compared to someone who received 2,921? The difference of 224 votes is around 7%, barely significant. So all those thousands of votes are, in a way, wasted. On the other hand, if someone received 12 likes and someone else received 2, the difference of 10 votes is comparatively quite large.
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11 minutes ago, Krakens_tanks said:
Ok I finally hit to many reactions but seriously all these are awesome
I agree! Thanks for starting this thread. 😁
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3 hours ago, Krakens_tanks said:
Is there legit a limit? I haven't hit it yet
There is. Although I do not know what the magic number is. You will know immediately when you have run out. 😎
I have read the counter resets every 24 hours, although no one seems to know when that happens.
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1 hour ago, H20CultureLabs said:
Finally put the boards on top up. I need to finish it as envision it doubling as a bookshelf for my aquarium books. It is so peaceful and enjoyable to just sit and look at it after a long day at work. Not much in the way of fry yet, still working on it.
This is looking wonderful! 🤩 One caution about the bookshelf. Depending on how humid your climate is, your books might develop mildew from sitting next to all that water.
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2 minutes ago, Streetwise said:
Dear younger me,
Figure out your water, and find the minimal treatment necessary. It might be a bucket.
Skip all the other technology and go right to sponge filters first. Augment if necessary. Save tons of money.
Buy twice as many plants.
Follow recipes before improvising.
Check in with me in a few years.
I love that you wrote a letter. 😃
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Nitrite spike? Help!
in General Discussion
Posted
ORD 💜 ↑ ↑ ↑ What she said. 😎